(DOWNLOAD) "Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol. The Battle of Manzikert (Book Review)" by The Journal of the American Oriental Society * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol. The Battle of Manzikert (Book Review)
- Author : The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Release Date : January 01, 2009
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 192 KB
Description
Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol. The Battle of Manzikert. By CAROLE HILLENBRAND. Edinburgh: EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS. 2007. Pp. xii + 288. $120 (cloth). $45 (paper). The focus of this book is the famous Byzantine-Saljuq confrontation at Manzikert (Malazgirt in Modern Turkish) in 1071 "as it is depicted in the surviving Arabic and Persian sources" (p. 4) of the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, i.e.. written well after the actual events. The texts "belong to a number of genres, including Universal History, dynastic histories and town chronicles" (p. 112). These are not eyewitness accounts, such as that of the Byzantine Michael Attaleiates (d. after 1085), who served under the ill-fated Romanus IV Diogenes (1068-71) and whose narrative is given in an appendix (pp. 229-37). Rather, they are "more about the memory of Manzikert" and how Muslim authors "gradually came to use Manzikert as a vehicle for portraying spiritual truths and for demonstrating the inherent superiority of Islam over Christianity" (pp. 4-5), an "occasion for reflection and for scoring ideological points" (p. 227). Although the accounts have a "common core" of certain details, corresponding, grosso modo, to Byzantine narratives, overall they are vague on military details and the events of the battle itself. Even the date remains "highly debatable" (p. 136). Hillenbrand comments that previous scholarship concentrated on the reliability of Muslim accounts, whereas contemporary scholarship now recognizes the "importance of the rhetorical nature of Islamic historiography" which had the "twin aims of edification and entertainment" (p. 111), often sacrificing "content to form" (p. 129), "a triumph of manner over matter" (p. 132). The texts are "literary artefacts and documents of religious history" written in prose that was "intended to be recited" (p. 130).
 "Turkish Myth and Muslim Symbol. The Battle of Manzikert (Book Review)" by The Journal of the American Oriental Society * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}